Bus

Traffic, everyone’s favorite pass time. Some people get angry, some -the ten o’clock scholars- get anxious, some sullenly accept their fate and sit behind the wheel with as much animation in their expressions as color in a black and white film.

However, one man stood out from the classic variety. He hops into his car Maybelle -a beat down family sedan but a classy lady non the less- and putt, putt, putts his way to work cloaked in his magical imagination.

Maybelle is blue in hue, a candy-apple tint with worn down patches on her driver’s door from repaired fender benders. Despite the superficial damage she has been well looked after by her owner who is a man of equal character, an eyecatcher though not through appearances.

Buford Butterball has no distinct physical attributes; average height, average face, average weight. If you pressed someone for a description they would say, “Well I dunno he kinda just looks like your average Joe.”

On this particular day which just so happened to be a Monday, don’t you love Monday morning traffic, Buford pulled over at the local taxi rank on his way to work. He was a man of routine and the old woman selling meals wrapped in cellophane became part of it. He took his usual order, she knew him well enough, a banana hammock on rye with two apples.

Buford stepped away from the old woman with a, “have a great day,” intent on crossing the road back to Maybelle when a white bus with a fading blue stripe roared past him close enough to pucker out his lips and give it a kiss. The gale force wind trailing the bus blew through his face reminding him just how close that shave was. Buford looked after the bus with trepidation, a rusted sticker on its rear end read ‘please let me in’ with a cartoon symbol of a thumbs up that mocked him. Buford turned, “Did you see that?” he questioned the crowd of people cueing for food, they passed a look between themselves, “See what?” asked a man, Bufford looked back but the bus was nowhere in sight, “Nothing I guess”.

He shook the feeling from his mind, climbed into Maybelle, checked his watch, and merged back into the congestion of the road.

Back in traffic Maybelle’s speakers blasted some excellent tunes, “Give me the beat boys and free my soul I wanna get lost in that rock n roll and drift away,” Buford belted out his favorite song with enough enthusiasm to draw quizzical looks from a silver mini cooper. The sound of tyres breaking hard as they skidded across tar drew his attention to the rear-view mirror, it couldn’t be the same bus… could it? He was in bumper to bumper traffic stretching ahead beyond the horizon, the bus he saw earlier on was ahead of him and yet, that blue stripe had the same sickness to it, a dying blue backdropped by flaking white paint. Whether or not it was the same bus made no difference, it had still pulled up dangerously close. It seemed to idle with an aggression ready to devour everything in its path. The light ahead flicked green, the bus pulled to the left cutting the mini cooper off and bulldozed its way up next to Mabelle’s passenger door, close enough to scrape paint with one wrong move, up ahead the road narrowed from two lanes into one as the hill rose. As the lanes merged into one Buford had right of way and still the bus pushed forward. Buford leaned over for a look at the driver but the bus was too tall and close for him to see any windows, at the last possible second he hit the brakes and the bus surged in front of Maybelle, how it didn’t wipe out her front bumper he will never know. That same sticker in the same place continued to mock him. Why was nobody concerned with the way this bus drove? Buford wondered as he looked around for support.

“Hey asshole,” Buford turned and looked out the window at a large man in a double cab bakkie, “Learn how to drive or get the fuck off the road!” The driver went on to throw all kinds of obscene suggestions at Buford some of which involved ice cubes, electrical components, and a cactus.

He looked back at the b… it was not there.

Buford was under pressure, balancing a demanding with job with an active family life, but he had always been under pressure. His entire life had been about getting from one struggle to the next so why was he seeing a bus that wasn’t there? Money problems could add to stress, always too much month left at the end of the money but there has always been and always will be money problems.

Buford smiled and told himself to forget it and he did by the time he pulled into the office parking lot ten minutes early as usual.

Buford makes his ham and cheese as a sales consultant, the majority of his day is spent travelling and signing contracts and his first meeting of the day went exceptionally well. After consummating what was going to be a profitable deal he rewarded himself with a seat at the window of his favorite coffee bar.

Looking out the widow Buford took note of how the morning weather faded from a crisp sunrise filled with luminous shades of daffodil yellow to a wash of dull English grey. Light drizzle painted the misted window, cars went to and fro on the bustling city road, people huddled under umbrella’s or jogged in under cover from the rain. Only one woman seemed to be enjoying the weather, she pootled along with her hands in her pockets smiling up towards the heavens. Buford wondered where she was from, was she local or was she from a snow blown country and this weather was like a summers day… whatever her story her approach to the weather warmed his bones and his soul. Then he noticed it across the road, that same dying blue stripe, that same gut feeling. It stood idling at an empty bus station where nobody kept showing up. This time he could see all the windows but not through them, the windows were frosted up as if the bus itself was a freezer. Although he could not see inside Buford knew he was being watched, he could feel it.

A barista with magenta hair and a thin frame asked if he would like a refill, without looking away from the bus Buford asked her, “Do you see the bus parked across the road?”

The barista peered in the direction of his gaze, “What about it?” She asked.

“Nothing,” he looked at her sheepishly, “thought I recognized it.”

Her smile was urbane as she moved on. When Buford looked back the bus had vanished.

Buford spent the rest of the day on edge, he looked over his shoulder like it was his new favorite pass time paying more attention to traffic than would a hungry speed cop. He lost focus and his sales, by the time he pulled into his driveway that evening he was exhausted and irritable. Not half an hour later while brooding over that bus Buford snapped without thought at his seven-year-old daughter Seraphina. She stood rooted in a moment of shock with tears welling up her eyes before devastation sent her flying from the room. His outburst earned him a look of surprise from his four-year-old son Max who gaped wide mouthed with a bright red truck dangling from his hand. It also earned him a glaciating look from his wife that said ‘we are going to talk about this later buddy you better believe it’, and they did after an icy evening where she said less than two words to him.

“Agatha please stop with the silent treatment, I know I should not have snapped at Seraphina.” Buford fluffed his pillow, readying for bed as he spoke.

“Seven years Buford.” Agatha sat at her dresser taking her earrings off

“Agatha I…”

She turned to face him, looking into her pale blue eyes he could see the hurt he had caused, the trust broken.

On the verge of crying she said, “Not once in seven years of being a father have you snapped at Seraphina like that, I am hurt and disappointed. I choose to give you the silent treatment rather than say things out of anger I will regret later on. Next time leave your work issues where they belong.”

Naturally Agatha assumed he must have had a rough day at work, how could he tell his beautiful wife the reason he was so strung out was because he believed he was being followed by a disappearing bus.

Buford slumped at the shoulders as he readied his side of the bed, he would have preferred it if Agatha had attacked him, he could have handled that.

He switched off the main lights, removed feet from slippers, and climbed under sheets still fresh with lavender fragrance. Agatha followed her own ritual before getting into bed, she picked up a book from her nightstand, Buford leaned over, pecked her on the cheek with a kiss and said, “I am so blessed to have you in my life, I love you.” Agatha’s face softened slightly as she opened her book

“I love you too,” she said after a long moments pause.

Buford snapped his bedside lamp off, turned over and went to sleep.

The next morning the house was back to normal, Seraphina gave her daddy a big hug and a kiss before she climbed into moms car where Max was already strapped in and waiting with a yoghurt packet between his teeth.

“I love you,” Buford called after his family as Agatha reversed her white Toyota out the drive way. “Love you more,” She called with a wave, both kids did their best to out wave mom from the back seat. Buford smiled, he was the luckiest man in the world until a white bus with a faded blue stripe smashed head first into Agatha’s car. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, the Toyota folded in from the side like a crumpled can, tyres exploded and his whole world blinked out as a white-hot blaze engulfed his family.

Written by L.J. Duffield